Ritual of Tale-telling There is no tale-teller, no bagpipe to thread these words in rhythms: sounds, seizures, thoughts that linger and bloat a mind. So, up on this space between breaths and what goes for darkness, with torch fires that cast our figures back in time, shadows flailing in rush-wind a man sits on a stool, inherits the mouths of a thousand tale-tellers before him, their features reliving and slamming the crest of nightfall. He begins with an aside– lulling the spirits that own his voice, asking for a portion of wholeness– a bidding to what language would suffice his course, subduing the many tangs a man's throat croons after: twilight, twilight and its twitch for warmth, twilight & the consummation of soul. Once, again, he splits the tale in both palms, one for each child, rubs them in twos until what we see is a patch of light exiting his fingers, turning clouds. Our fathers used to say: "nothing would come alive when there is no tale-teller."
For Each Soul Unmade, A New Sky Beams 1. Beneath a sun-cracked sky a town thins into worship for a god that caves & hides in chests for temples. A man stretches between two walls, signaling the length of time it takes to commune with a god too ugly to be seen. 2. Ahead of myopic dysfunction mother snatches the light in our eyes, buries them in her palm beneath rows of talisman just in case god forgets that we– pilgrims without foot, fishers trading boats, drained of thirst half way through a neap tide– are crouched still, knees unearthing silt in awaitance of a new sky. 3. This town, seamlessly drawn, wears the heads of several men hung out on poles like waist beads; a contortion of likeness, image of god. An overcharge of neon light cleanses the night alongside bees smacking through tents. Knives cleave on the trot & a man steps out to demystify god; engineer a new sky. 4. Pulses hold, breaths seize except ours– of course– ours is a collection of petals aligned in such linearity they pass for pairs of teeth whitened from tree barks. We are honed into a circle, the man's feet, firm on a ladder. We watch him weave the sky into patterns for us & we agree henceforth to name him god.
Postmortem for a Finger Withered Out & how would it be so nicely told that a finger departs from its palm to wring a meal all by itself: god's mouth is sore and what more can be said: there is little satisfaction in wholeness: a man flees from home– elopes, if you choose to say it– to find the ungathered portions of himself: & on his way, he finds one whole self in a woman's bulging stomach: for he must retrieve what part he owns: a repatriation of being: what is more than punching open a belly to find yourself there, gaunt: and what is more than waking from a nebula of voices in your head, you, completely unwhole, only remembering what last words parted your forefinger half lit with cancer: to earth, love & unwholeness, this is all a finger seeks.
Iheoma Uzomba currently studies English and Literary Studies at the University of Nigeria Nsukka (UNN). Aside losing herself to literary pieces and traveling from world to world in the books she reads, she takes writing to be lifestyle. Her works feature or are forthcoming on Kissing Dynamite, Fact-Simile editions, Dreich Magazine, the Muse (a print journal of creative and critical writing) and elsewhere.
